Key win for Elijah’s family

The family of Boulder teenager Elijah Doughty has won a significant legal battle on the road to launching possible civil action over his death.

The Supreme Court yesterday ruled the legal team working on behalf of Elijah’s family could access court documents it could not have previously because of strict restrictions on publication of the killer’s identity.

The man, whose name is suppressed by court order, was released from prison earlier this year, 19 months after he was cleared of manslaughter but convicted of dangerous driving causing death.

Elijah, 14, was run down and killed by the man — who is now understood to be living interstate after another, secret jurisdiction agreed to a parole transfer — in his utility in August 2016. He suspected the teenager was riding a motorcycle stolen from his home.

In March, lawyer Stewart Levitt, representing Elijah’s mother Petrina James and grandfather Albert Doughty, wrote to Attorney-General John Quigley flagging the family’s intention to sue the convicted man. Mr Levitt also said the family was considering filing a Human Rights Commission complaint against WA Police and the WA Director of Public Prosecutions.

But he said the actions were being blocked by a decision not to release the trial transcript and exhibits to them because it would breach a court suppression order “prohibiting the publication or disclosure of information identifying the offender”.

The lawyers were successful in arguing in the Supreme Court yesterday that the documents were crucial for exploring the legal avenues open to them.

New WA Chief Justice Peter Quinlan, in what was one of his first rulings, varied the suppression order, allowing the lawyers access to the transcripts of the trial and the offender’s police interview.

The sentencing remarks would not be released, Justice Quinlan ruled, with the offender’s lawyer Seamus Rafferty raising concerns they contained details likely to identify his client.

Justice Quinlan ordered that the lawyers could communicate the “substance of the evidence” only to the family “for the purposes of providing legal advice” but could not publish or disclose the information to anybody else. He also ruled that the offender’s name be deleted from both documents — an exercise that will be carried out by the court.

“In the circumstances, there is a legitimate purpose for solicitors and counsel to have a copy of the transcript of proceedings,” he said.

“In my view, the evidence itself provides a better basis for any legal advice as to the applicants’ rights.”

Justice Quinlan did not make an order in relation to an application by the family’s lawyers to access exhibits from the trial, which are now back in WA Police custody.